South Korea’s births fall to record low in January

South Korea’s births fell to a fresh low in January, while the number of deaths reached its record high, statistics data shows, signaling an accelerating population decline in the world's 12th largest economy.

The country saw 23,179 babies born in January, a 6% drop from 24,665 the year before, according to Statistics Korea on Wednesday.

It marked the lowest number of monthly births since the statistics agency started compiling the data in January 1981.

The January number also represented the biggest rate of on-year decline since the 8.4% drop in July 2022 as the country is heading toward a super-aged society, where those aged over 65 will account for one-fifth of the country's population.

Asia’s No. 4 economy has been grappling with the world's lowest birth rate.

If the downward trend continues at a similar rate to that of January, of about 6%, South Korea will likely record 239,000 births for the whole year of 2023, below last year’s 249,031, which was already a record low for the country.

The declining births led to an overall drop of 9,523 in population, extending the so-called population dead cross since November 2019, the point when deaths outpaced births.

Also, the number of births per 1,000 people plummeted to a fresh low of 5.3 in January due to fewer marriages, which resulted in fewer babies despite the increase in young couples having babies out of wedlock, said a Statistics Korea official.

Deaths increased 9.6% on-year to 32,703 in January, the highest number ever for any January in Korea due to the prolonged pandemic.

Provincial areas and cities in the southern part of the country were hit harder by the decreased births and simultaneously increased deaths than in the Seoul metropolitan area.

Meanwhile, a larger number of couples tied the knot in January, reversing an about 10% decrease in both 2020 and 2021 at the height of COVID-19.

The divorce rate edged down 1.4% to 7,251in the same month.

Last year, South Korea hit a historic low fertility rate of 0.78 and childbirths nearly halved to a fresh low of 249,000, down 4.4% from the previous record low in 2021.

Write to Jin-gyu Kang at josep@hankyung.com

Yeonhee Kim edited this article